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I know Malossi along with Polini and while nice we do blow them up on the Italian bikes opting to go back to stock many times.

For Chinese bikes the Hoka kit is nice enough without breaking the bank. I went with the Hoka variator, Gates Aramid belt and just the better Parts for Scooters replacement clutch on my Lance Vintage and it was just fine. I did have to replace the final drive bearings on the clutch shaft first as they had been over stressed by performance mods done by the previous owner.

The person who bought my Lance 5 years ago has only had to replace belts and rollers since he bought it. Maybe I should have kept it.

What about the old suede sided Subaru's with the horizontal engines?

Yep when building power supplies for our Heath Kits in our youth my brother and I had access to an Oscilloscope which helped us see visually the impact the right capacitor had in smoothing things out. A lot of sharp tall waves resulted in flickering lights/video and warbly audio.

Glow lights are only lawful as parking lights in many areas now so one does need to be careful.

On the Malossi stuff die hard Aprilia modifiers are finding that stock variators with Dr Pulley Sliders in the stock wieghts give the best bang for the buck and easily last twice as long as the rollers plus the stock Piaggio variator lasts longer than the Malossi too. They are using the Malossi spings in the stock clutches too with great results. The gotcha with the higher speed engagement of the Malossi clutch many times is greatly reduced belt life and greater wear on the clutch shaft bearings inside the final drive gear box due to the harder hit when it engages especially if you set the springs too hard.

The old adage usually holds true that when you make a candle burn hotter and more brightly it burns out more quickly so sometimes a bit of moderation is in order to get that balance of performance and reliability.

The adage hold true that its more fun to go fast on a slow bike than to go slow on a fast bike.

I was out on the interstate doing about 80 Saturday and a kid in shorts on a Sport Bike had to pop a wheelie to prove the superiority of his bike with an extra 1,000 cc's over my 250. The cross winds coming into the bay with the evening sea breeze almost took him down which with the saggy shorts he was wearing would have left quite a few marks. At least the concrete road surface would not have been as rough on him as asphalt until he came to the steel expansion joints. I was not impressed. He was upset since on the two lane on-ramp I had passed him and he had missed his downshift so it took him some time to collect himself and catch up.

I had more fun tooling about, looked at the new Honda DCT bikes, saw the leftover Piaggio BV350's being offered with 0% financing from Piaggio (tempting you to get one and not loose interest on your money in the bank) and ended up stopping at Walmart to get a a new folding cane since my old one that I keep in the topcase had broken the rubber cord again so that it was not holding together very well however got some ciabatta rolls, boneless buffalo wings and Colby cheese for my dinner. Toasted the rolls and melted the cheese over the boneless buffalo wings inside the rolls. Had some popcorn shrimp on the side. Moral is never go shopping hungry.

There are bubble shields that will work with your open faced helmet however I nixed that and went with a modular with a flip down sun shield. I do not like full face helmets that much either however I do like to eat solid food which I would not be doing easily today based on how the chin bar looked on my modular after my 45 mph off this past spring.

Thats good news. Much better than getting a room with a really bad view.